


Times that Walk from You

by pellucid



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/F, five things fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 10:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19226896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pellucid/pseuds/pellucid
Summary: Five Things that Never Happened to Hecate Hardbroom (and One that Did)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am deeply unreconciled to season 3 and the backstory it gave Hecate. But I figured I should try to process it a bit, and this is the result. 
> 
> As ever, tremendous great thanks to gabolange for being an exacting beta!

1\. 

The end of Joy’s school career is a triumph. “And whoever would have expected it when you started and couldn’t keep out of trouble,” Mrs. Cackle says rather ruefully, as she announces that Joy has come first in the final witches’ qualifying exams. 

The final marks had been close: she beat Pippa by a mere percentage point. “That wasn’t very polite of you,” Pippa laughs as they escape the headmistress’s office and run out onto the lawn among the packs of girls free from their tests and enjoying the summer sunshine. “You might at least have worked in a small mistake in chanting so we could have tied.” 

“How was I supposed to know you were going to make a mistake in spell science?” Joy counters. “If you’d gotten that right, we’d have tied in the other direction.” 

“Oh well,” says Pippa. “Now you’ll have to make the speech at final exercises. I’m glad enough to get out of that.” 

Joy rolls her eyes. “You aren’t a bit glad, Miss I Have Ideas About Magical Education. You have a speech all planned out, don’t you?”

Pippa shrugs, neither admitting nor denying it, and Joy grins at her and grabs her hand. 

“Come on,” Joy says, “let’s go out to the other side of the lake where it’s quiet. Can I transfer us?”

The far side of the lake is technically out of bounds, but generations of Cackle’s girls have gone there nonetheless, and to Joy’s knowledge none of them have ever been punished. And besides, broomstick waterskiing displays take them across the whole lake with regularity; part of Joy and Pippa’s spring doubles display required them to fly up over the trees on the far shore, and even Mrs. Cackle had praised their ingenuity.

Joy might have saved herself some trouble in her third year if she’d thought to test her limits here rather than down the mountain. For some months back then she’d snuck out of the castle at every opportunity, made fast friends with an ordinary girl, and broken at least four major tenets of the Witches’ Code. She’d come perilously close to stealing a wishing star and using it to grant magic to Indigo, but fortunately the gravity of that act had impressed itself upon her before she’d gone through with it.

Instead, she’d focused her attention back on her studies, on her other friends, on the magical world. There were good reasons, she reminded herself as she studied her magical history, for the separation between their worlds. 

The June sun is hot as Joy and Pippa fling themselves onto the grass by the lake. Pippa rests her head in Joy’s lap and closes her eyes; Joy twirls blonde hair around her fingers and counts the freckles on Pippa’s nose. 

Joy can’t wait for everything to start. She and Pippa have plans to spend the summer broompacking across Europe, and then in the fall they’ll room together at Weirdsister, and then after they’ll find a house or a flat that’s just their own, while Pippa starts teaching and Joy begins graduate work in potions. 

Sometimes Joy thinks she can picture their whole lives laid out before them, all their grand plans leading to success and happiness. Sometimes the unknown possibilities, all the things they might do or be, thrill and frighten her, but she is confident she and Pippa can overcome any of it as long as they’re together. She traces a finger along Pippa’s jaw, and Pippa hums contentedly.

“I _do_ have ideas about magical education, you know,” Pippa says after a while. “And someday I’ll tell people about them and they’ll take them seriously.”

“I know,” Joy replies. “You’ll be brilliant. At the telling people, anyway. I reserve the right to remain deeply skeptical about modern magic.”

“I suppose if you’re going to be the greatest traditional potioneer of our generation that’s to be expected.” Pippa opens her eyes and grins up at Joy. 

Joy leans down to kiss her, but the angle is awkward and she gets Pippa’s chin instead. They’re both laughing as Pippa moves so they can get it right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five Things that Never Happened to Hecate Hardbroom

2\. 

Hecate tries to block out the sound of Pippa banging on her door. For the first three weeks after Hecate skipped the waterskiing display and refused thereafter to speak to her, Pippa had done this constantly, bruising her knuckles against the wood of the door and exhausting her magic trying to break through the charms Hecate put up to keep her out. Pippa made scenes in the hallway, not caring who saw, while Hecate curled in on herself in the corner of her room, sobbing silently. 

But that stopped, finally, and Pippa has started ignoring her back, aside from glaring at her at every opportunity. 

Hecate winces every time she sees the anger and hurt on Pippa’s face but reminds herself that she’s doing this for Pippa. After Joy became Hecate and tried her best to push all of her friends away, only Pippa was persistent, refusing to let Hecate go. Hecate should have been stronger then, but she wasn’t, and in the subsequent years they’ve gotten so tangled together that Hecate can’t imagine being apart. 

But they must part, and this time Hecate will be stronger. Pippa has such boundless potential for success, so much drive to make something really extraordinary of her life. Hecate has only these walls and this view, stretching out for decades to come. She would only drag Pippa down and hold her back, and Hecate refuses to do that. 

“I thought you loved me,” Pippa had whispered through the door, very late on the fifth night.

 _More than you know_ , Hecate wouldn’t let herself reply.

But that had been a month ago, and anger notwithstanding, Pippa had seemed to reconcile herself to the new situation. Now, however, she is banging at the door again, and Hecate isn’t sure she can take this for the remainder of their last weeks at school. 

Suddenly there is a wave of Pippa’s magic, and Hecate realizes belatedly that she hasn’t kept up her protection charms as diligently as she should have. She scrambles to react, but Pippa is already through the door.

“Is it true?” Pippa demands. She looks absolutely furious. 

“Is what true?” Hecate replies before she can stop herself. She’s not supposed to be speaking to Pippa.

“That you can’t leave Cackle's. Is it true?”

Hecate opens her mouth but can’t make any sound come out. Pippa can’t know about her sentence, she simply _can’t_. Hecate imagines all of Pippa’s choices narrowing to accommodate Hecate’s lifetime at Cackle’s and feels a little sick. She reaches out for her chair to steady herself.

Pippa has gone white. “It is,” she says, her voice suddenly quiet. “Hiccup, _why_?” 

“How did you—?” Hecate manages, gripping the back of the chair more tightly. 

“Miss Bat,” Pippa answers. “She said what a shame it was that you weren’t able to leave school with the rest of us, and what kind of life did Mrs. Cackle think you were going to be able to have here. And I said what was she talking about, and she looked alarmed and said didn’t I— _of all people_ , she said—know about your confinement to Cackle's.”

Hecate closes her eyes to block out Pippa’s beautiful, pleading face. The blood is rushing in her ears, and she feels tears threaten. 

“Hecate, what does she mean? What confinement?”

It’s a relief, finally, to confess, and the whole story comes tumbling out in a rush: Indigo, the wishing star, the Great Wizard and Mrs. Cackle, every secret Hecate had guarded so closely for the past five years. By the end, she and Pippa are in a heap on the floor, holding each other and crying. 

“I’m sorry,” Hecate keeps repeating, and she’s grateful Pippa doesn’t ask her to elaborate. There’s such a long list of her regrets: breaking the Code and what happened to Indigo; hiding this from Pippa and trying to shut her out; telling her and forcing Pippa to choose between Hecate and her own life; most of all, letting Pippa love her in the first place, when it was only ever going to end like this.

After some time, Pippa raises her head from where it had been resting against Hecate’s neck and looks at her. “When does it end?” she asks.

At first Hecate doesn’t understand the question.

“The confinement,” Pippa clarifies. “How long is the sentence? When do you get out?”

“I don’t,” Hecate replies. She thought Pippa realized. “I have to stay forever.”

Hecate thought she knew every expression Pippa’s face could make but this is entirely new. Shock and rage and horror pass over her features in equal measure. “No,” Pippa says, her voice like steel. “No, you will not. That’s reprehensible. For an infraction you committed at 13? No.”

“It’s what the Great Wizard decreed,” Hecate replies helplessly.

“What did your advocate say to that? Did they appeal?”

“I didn’t have an advocate,” Hecate admits.

“What?!” Now Pippa is energized, and she shifts to sit straight up, tucking her legs beneath her and practically bouncing. “You were entitled to an advocate. Your aunt should have seen to it. Or Mrs. Cackle. And really the Great Wizard should have insisted. Everyone accused of a major violation of the Code has the right to an advocate, Hecate you _know_ this.”

“I—” But Hecate doesn’t know what to say. She felt so guilty at the time that she never even questioned the adults’ decisions; the Great Wizard was foreboding, Mrs. Cackle patronizing and firm, and her aunt simply acquiesced to those with more power. “I didn’t have one,” she repeats. “No one suggested it and I didn’t think—”

Pippa jumps up and grabs her hand, tugging Hecate up to stand. “Come on,” Pippa announces, “we’re mirroring my mother. She’ll sort this out right away.”

“Doesn’t your mother do real estate law?” Hecate asks as she trails behind Pippa to the mirror room.

“Oh, it’s all close enough, right?” Pippa waves a hand in the air. “And all advocates are licensed as general experts in the Code before they specialize. Besides, she knows people.” 

In the corridor, Pippa pushes and smiles them to the front of the line. “Emergency,” she says, and everyone seems to believe her. Hecate knows they must look frightful from all the tears; she can feel her hair coming loose from its bun, and Pippa’s face is red and blotchy. 

They step into the mirror room, but before Pippa initiates the call, she turns to Hecate, her hands holding Hecate’s face and her eyes calm and serious. “We’re going to fix this,” Pippa says, and Hecate dares to believe her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five Things that Never Happened to Hecate Hardbroom

3\. 

The great hall is crammed with people: alumnae, parents, patrons, the who’s who of the witching community, all come to celebrate Alma Cackle’s retirement. Hecate wants to be having a better time than she is. She sees so few people, most of the time. The other staff, the students. Sometimes there are parents’ nights, or visitors from other schools for an academic or sporting competition. Her only contact with the wider world is when the world comes to Cackle’s.

Hecate wants to be excited by the party, but instead it’s all overwhelming crowds and awkward conversations. 

“Still teaching here, Miss Hardbroom?” Herbert Bloodmoon had asked, not bothering to disguise the disappointment in his voice. He has published two of her articles in his journal _Traditional Potions_. “You have such promise, you know, but if you really want to get on in the potions world, you can’t dedicate so much of your time to schoolgirls who can’t tell one end of a cauldron from the other.”

Then it was Rosemary Wolfsbane, with whom she had formed a mirror-based study group, back when they were doing their teaching certification by correspondence. “Hecate, the Brew Club is meeting in Mallorca this year! I simply won’t hear any of your excuses to skip. I know you’re a homebody, but how can you spend your summer in this place when there’s a beach with our name on it!”

She lies and says she’ll think about it, and when someone else catches Rosemary’s attention, Hecate lets herself get lost in the crowd. 

It has always taken effort to pretend: to lie to people like Rosemary about being terribly busy just now, but maybe next time. To write and write as though she were a real researcher with real career prospects, so that Herbert Bloodmoon and editors like him will print her name in journals that go live in the world when she can’t. 

Lately, she’s been wondering if it’s worth it. Her ambition wanes more and more each year, and the people on the outside she has tried to stay connected to drift a little further away. For now, she keeps holding on, but Hecate can imagine her future: in another ten or twenty years, her reputation as a hermit will be solidified, the rest of the world will be closed off, and there will only be this, forever. 

Hecate pushes through the crowd, steps around a column to get closer to the edge of the room, and suddenly she’s face to face with Pippa. They both freeze and stare. It’s been twelve years since they last saw each other, twelve years and a few months since they were last friends—or whatever more they had become to each other by the end.

“Hecate,” Pippa says, her voice a little brittle.

“Pippa,” Hecate manages back. 

She’s kept up with Pippa’s career: achievements in scholarship, in teaching, in the field of modern magic. Her glamor and success have been getting Pippa attention in mainstream publications as well, and Hecate reads all of it: the articles on modern magic, the gossip rags. She finds the substance of both to be ridiculous, but she can’t keep from collecting Pippa’s triumphs. This is what Pippa was always going to be able to have, as long as she could fly free of Hecate. 

“I’d heard you were back teaching here,” Pippa offers. “Congratulations. It’s a great post.”

A bitter laugh threatens, but instead Hecate says, “Thank you. I hear you’ve had success in your career.” And then, before she can stop herself, “I always knew you would do great things; I’m so proud of you.” It’s far too personal, and Hecate regrets it immediately. A simple, polite _congratulations_ would be much more appropriate for the person one loved and then abruptly abandoned. 

Pippa looks pleased, though confused. “I—thank you,” she says. “I have to admit,” Pippa continues, “I was a little surprised that you’re working here. I know you’re doing potions research; I’ve read your work.” Pippa blushes a little, and Hecate swallows. “But to be teaching here instead of, I don’t know, doing research full time or teaching at a university. It isn’t what I expected you to choose.”

 _As if I had a choice_ , Hecate wants to say. She knows she should be grateful. Mrs. Cackle supported her teaching certification course, gave her the job when Miss Blackthistle retired, and has been happy enough for Hecate to carry on with research as long as it doesn’t interfere with her teaching. It’s more than she has any right to expect. 

Yet she looks at Pippa and she _wants_. Wants Pippa, yes, always. But she also wants Pippa’s freedom to make a life of her own choosing, Pippa’s capacity to reach her potential, Pippa’s confidence that her abilities will lead somewhere. At school, Pippa used to daydream about the wild success they were both going to have, their lives built on their own merits but forever intertwined. Hecate, treasonous, never corrected her. Hecate knew it could never be like that, but she’s never stopped wishing for it. With Pippa and even without her, Hecate wants to go places and accomplish things and stop slowly smothering in this castle. But it’s all impossible, and she should know better than to think of it.

At that moment Miss Bat strikes a chord on the organ to draw everyone’s attention. It is time for the speeches to begin, and Hecate is saved from replying. Though she knows it’s cowardly, Hecate uses the distraction to slip away from Pippa and transfer to her room. A silencing charm blocks out the noise of the party, and she curls up on her bed and refuses to cry.

By the next morning, the castle is back to normal. Then the term ends, and Hecate prepares for yet another solitary summer at Cackle’s. 

But she isn’t alone. Ada Cackle has become headmistress and is spending the summer at the school as she gets her bearings. Ada is polite and courteous, but she has work to do and is settling down without fuss to do it, which Hecate respects. They largely keep out of each other’s way. 

Hecate, too, has her summer work—one article to be revised and resubmitted to the _Journal of Potions_ , another she’s hoping to finish writing, and a stack of professional correspondence she has been neglecting. She steels herself up to keep up her outside connections and thereby wage this fight against her fate. And as long as she’s busy, she can hold the despair at bay. 

On Ada’s fourth day on the job, Hecate gets a message on her maglet mid-morning. _My office, please. Urgent. A.C._

Hecate transfers immediately to the corridor outside the headmistress’s office—she will have to get used to thinking of it as Ada rather than Alma Cackle’s—and finds the door open. Ada is pacing behind her desk, which is piled with files. She holds one paper in her hand and frowns as she reads it.

“You wished to see me, Headmistress?” Hecate ventures from the doorway.

“Hecate, yes, thank you for coming so quickly. Come in.” Ada waves her in but doesn’t offer her a seat or a cup of tea. Hecate had been a little alarmed at the “urgent” in Ada’s note, but now she is becoming positively nervous.

“I’ve been going through the castle wards,” Ada says, “and I have no idea what to make of this.” She waves the paper in her hand. “It cannot possibly mean what it suggests, can it?” She thrusts the page at Hecate, who sees the words _Terms of Confinement: Hecate Hardbroom _before her blood runs cold.__

__“I—yes, Headmistress,” Hecate manages. Her voice sounds very far away. “It is, that is, I’m sure it says—yes.” She can’t bring herself to actually read the thing. She hates the idea of another person knowing, though of course it’s inevitable for Ada Cackle to become part of the group that keeps Hecate’s secret and her shame._ _

__“Well, that’s patently absurd,” Ada announces. “The spell to lift it is right here; I cannot fathom why my mother never used it.” And before Hecate can so much as take a breath, Ada lifts her hand and casts the spell._ _

__Hecate doesn’t know what she thought it would feel like; she has tried, with a fairly high degree of success, not to imagine this moment at all. But if she had expected some great moment of change, some immediate lightening of her invisible chains, she would have been disappointed. It doesn’t feel different at all, and the only thing she is truly aware of is the panic she feels as she tries to catch up with the events of the past three minutes. She’s dizzy and her heart is racing._ _

__“But doesn’t that document explain why I have been confined?” Hecate asks. Surely Ada has made a terrible mistake, and if that’s the case, best they get it sorted immediately, before Hecate has a chance to hope. “I violated the Code, and a girl has been turned to stone.”_ _

__“Yes, yes,” Ada interrupts. “And it was a grievous mistake, I’m sure. But I think you’ve paid quite enough for it, don’t you?”_ _

__“But the Great Wizard passed the sentence.”_ _

__“And entrusted my mother and her heirs to carry it out at their discretion.” Ada gestures once more to the document. “I choose not to be anyone’s jailer.”_ _

__Hecate’s legs go weak, and she sinks into one of Ada’s chairs. Against her will, hope is building, overwhelming her efforts to hold it back, setting her magic singing throughout her body. She’s free. She’s _free_. _ _

__“Here, now, drink some of this,” Ada says, thrusting a cup of tea into her hands. “Just breathe. Take the time you need. I probably rushed that and didn’t give you time to think.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Hecate murmurs, and then realizes it sounds as though she’s grateful only for the tea. She reaches out and brushes Ada’s sleeve. “Truly, Headmistress. Thank you.”_ _

__“Ada, please. And I’m happy to continue to be your headmistress if you would like to stay on. You’re certainly the best potions mistress I’m likely to be able to get my hands on. But perhaps this career has not ever been your choice. And I would certainly understand if you never wanted to see this place again.” Ada offers a sympathetic smile. “Of course you needn’t decide right away. The point is that you’re free to do as you please. Wherever you please.”_ _

__Hecate is 30 years old and she hasn’t been beyond these grounds since she was 13. She has no idea how to go about being an adult in the world. But, she tells herself firmly, she can learn._ _

__Hecate thinks of the letters on her desk. There are two invitations to conferences that she was about to decline. The National Witching Library’s annual potions fellowship application is due next month; she has already thrown that out, but she could send for another form. She could even call up Rosemary and go to Mallorca. A sort of giddy euphoria is building as possibilities start to run through her mind; she wants to laugh._ _

__These opportunities are ways out and things she might build on; they’re means to…something else, anywhere else. She can’t see far ahead, but she can envision herself flying away from this place. She can imagine meeting people she won’t have to lie to about her entire existence. Perhaps someday she might even be able to apologize to Pippa._ _

__“I’ve learned a great deal from teaching here,” Hecate says. It’s only polite to say so, only polite not to run immediately from this room and this castle. “But you’re right; it was never what I would have chosen.”_ _


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five Things that Never Happened to Hecate Hardbroom

4\. 

It’s Julie Hubble who suggests it, sometime in that first endless, hollow day after Hecate sacrifices her magic to save the school. “If it would be easier to be out in the non-magical world,” Julie says, “I could help show you about, get you oriented and such.”

Hecate opens her mouth to refuse, and then closes it again. She hadn’t considered that that now, because of this, she might be able to leave.

The idea has surprised Ada, too; Hecate can tell by her expression and the way she stumbles over her words. “Well, I mean—” Ada says, looking alarmed. “This is your home, Hecate. But I suppose you could go now, if you wished. Without magic there would be no means of binding you.”

Julie looks confused, and Hecate silently pleads with Ada not to explain. Has the last day not been enough on its own, without having to explain to _Julie Hubble_ , of all people, why Hecate has not left Cackle’s in 35 years. 

“Thank you,” Hecate hears herself saying to Julie before she can process the thought. “That would be…helpful.” 

Julie smiles; Ada has gone pale. Hecate feels like the air has been sucked out of the room, but perhaps that’s just how air is without magic. 

She supposes there’s a certain symmetry to it. She has been imprisoned for trying to give magic to Indigo; now only her lack of magic will set her free. 

Hecate wants to refuse Julie’s offer to stay at her flat— _just until you get on your feet_ , Julie says—but she has absolutely no idea what she would do otherwise. They ride the bus down the mountain, and everything is so much louder, brighter, and more crowded than Hecate remembers. Without her magic, none of her senses work the way they’re supposed to. 

She’s wearing clothes borrowed from Julie, ill-fitting and uncomfortable and strange. For decades she’s fixed her hair using magic and doesn’t remember how to do it by hand, certainly not to her usual standards, so it’s hanging down her back in a clumsy plait. She’s exhausted from walking, and her head is pounding, and she wants nothing more than to go back to her familiar room and never come out again. But with each step she takes away from Cackle’s and into the world, the refrain rings louder in her mind: _free, free, free_. 

She sleeps. For days, she thinks. Sometimes she wakes and it is light outside, sometimes dark. Julie is concerned, she can tell, and at one point asks if she would prefer to return to Cackle’s. Hecate surprises herself with the force of her refusal. Yet nothing is right here. It isn’t her bed, her home. She’ll never go back, and when she weeps she isn’t sure if it’s from heartbreak or relief.

Sometimes Hecate thinks of the spell she cast and its implications. She gave up her own magic, yes, but also that of generations of her children—children she doesn’t have and has never expected to have. Will the founding stone be fooled? What if this has only delayed the destruction of the school, and someday it will all freeze again unless she finds a way to have non-magical daughters and granddaughters until 400 years from now, some descendant of hers will, like Mildred Hubble, have her powers awakened anew. She feels nauseous. Hecate has always known she could never have children, not in the life she was confined to. What if now she must? Distantly, she knows it’s something most people are able to choose for themselves.

The next time Hecate wakes, she’s not alone. She can hear someone breathing, somehow more quietly than Julie, and there is a hint of familiar perfume. 

“Pippa,” she breathes, and then is afraid to open her eyes, afraid she’s only dreaming.

“Oh Hiccup,” Pippa says, and then there’s a weight on the mattress, and Pippa pulls Hecate into her arms.

Hecate clings. She knows it’s undignified and tries to make herself let go. Surely Pippa doesn’t want this from her anyway; the last few times they’ve spoken they’ve only fought. Hecate hates this helplessness and neediness, and she can’t imagine how anyone—Julie, Pippa, anyone—would want to put up with this empty version of Hecate Hardbroom.

But Pippa just holds her and makes soothing sounds until Hecate can manage to let go and sit up. 

“I’m sorry,” Hecate says, twisting her fingers for the spell to dry her tears and then clenching her fists as she remembers. She swipes at her face.

“Darling, whatever for?” Pippa replies. “I can’t imagine what this must be like for you—for a witch like you, of all people, to lose her magic. Hiccup, _of course_ this is going to be difficult.” 

Pippa has one leg tucked up under her as she sits on the edge of the bed, and she strokes Hecate’s hand, holding it between both of hers. For a moment Hecate feels like it’s 30 years ago, the two of them on her bed at Cackle’s, with Hecate weighed down by her terrible secret and Pippa trying to help even as Hecate stayed silent. 

And she is silent still. All she has ever known is that castle and its grounds. All she’s ever worked towards is being the best witch. She thinks she might have been able to manage being out in the world if she still had her magic, or to manage losing her magic if she knew how to be in the world. Instead, Hecate is entirely lost, and only Pippa is familiar. Pippa, whom she has lied to and betrayed for most of their lives. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Pippa says. “I went to Cackle’s as soon as I heard what happened, but you were gone. Ada was annoyingly close-lipped about the whole thing, but then Mildred found me and put me in touch with her mother.”

“Ada is angry that I left,” Hecate replies. Of course Ada has said no such thing outright, but Hecate knows it is true. Ada has always been far too invested in the idea that Hecate was happy at Cackle’s.

“But surely she must understand how painful it would be for you to stay,” Pippa says, “surrounded by magic when you can’t—” She breaks off and looks like she might cry.

The irony, Hecate thinks, is that she might have chosen to stay if it had ever been a choice in the first place. She hasn’t been unhappy at Cackle’s, not exactly. It’s practically the only home she’s ever known. She might have preferred to learn to navigate the loss of the core of her identity in a familiar place. But she held onto the only thing she could control and walked out the front gates. If she cannot be a witch, she will at least be free.

Better, though, for Pippa to think the presence of magic was too painful; it’s true enough. Hecate can’t imagine telling her the whole story. She’s terribly afraid that if Pippa knew about Indigo, about her confinement, about the decades of lies, that she’d abandon Hecate to this chaotic, vacant world.

Pippa shifts herself more fully onto the bed, sits back against the headboard, and tugs Hecate into her side. Hecate feels herself stiffen automatically and feels Pippa stiffen in response. Always, Hecate thinks, this awkwardness comes between them, accompanying all of her secrets. Hecate forces herself to relax. Pippa presses a kiss to Hecate’s temple and squeezes her hand.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five Things that Never Happened to Hecate Hardbroom

5\. 

Years pass and faces change. Alma Cackle is succeeded by her daughter Ada Cackle who is succeeded by her cousin Amanda Cackle. Even Amanda is growing old now and contemplating retirement. Her daughter Amity, now middle aged herself, is waiting in the wings. Generations of girls pass through these walls. And constant across it all is Hecate.

She curses witches’ long lives. She’s heard that ordinary people often die at 80 or 90, that 100 is terribly old among them. Hecate is 127 years old, and she has spent the past 114 of those years within these grounds. At a certain point the passing of time stops being meaningful. She measures her life by the seasons—when plants bloom and die, when students arrive and depart—but one year is much like another. She had to stop teaching a few years back, so now there is even less variety. 

Hecate wonders sometimes what use her life has been. She has taught thousands of girls about potions, which perhaps is no small accomplishment. It was never what she wanted to do, but then again, it has been so long since want came into her life in any capacity that she scarcely remembers what she might have preferred. And she visits Indigo—the statue unweathered, looking exactly as it has for over 100 years—and remembers that she long ago gave up the right to want anything at all.

Still, the past is coming back more and more these days. Hecate knows she is dying. Finally, she thinks, yet she is also afraid. In her whole life there has been so little unknown. She supposes it is an innately human instinct to be afraid of death, even if one hasn’t had much of a life. 

Amanda must have put the word out that Hecate hasn’t much time left, because she’s been getting letters and occasionally calls from fond former students and colleagues. Cards stack up from several generations of Hallows and Spellbodys and Foxgloves. Dimity Drill mirrors one afternoon and chats amiably about the trials of growing old. Dimity’s children have taken her broom away—for my own good, Dimity says, rolling her eyes—which signals the beginning of the end. Hecate hasn’t been on a broom in decades.

Mildred Hubble visits on one of Hecate’s stronger days, and they stroll the gardens in quiet companionship. There are hundreds of students Hecate has entirely forgotten, but the day Mildred came crashing into the Cackle’s pond remains seared in her memory. For all her trouble, Mildred became an excellent student, and she surprised Hecate by announcing that she was going for a teaching course with a specialty in potions. After she certified, Mildred was appointed potions mistress at Pentangle’s, of all places, and some years after that she succeeded Pippa as headmistress. 

Hecate has seen less of Mildred recently—less than in those early years of Mildred’s career when she called up Hecate two or three times a term to ask about a potion or a lesson plan, certainly—but more than any of her other former students, Mildred has kept in touch. 

Mildred catches Hecate up on some recent potions research, admits to both loving and hating retirement, and shows off photos of her newest great-granddaughter. Hecate tries to follow along and make approving noises at the right moments, but she finds it hard to grasp anything outside these grounds anymore. The sun is warm, the breeze is gentle. Somewhere nearby a bird is singing.

They stop to sit on a bench, and Mildred looks at Hecate. “I spoke to Pippa the other day,” Mildred says, a bit gingerly. 

Hecate closes her eyes and sighs. This has always been the trouble with seeing Mildred. Mildred brings Pippa trailing after her whenever she visits. Never in person—Hecate hasn’t seen Pippa in over 50 years—but Pippa lingers in the edges of Mildred’s stories, Pippa has been the other great influence on Mildred’s career, and in recent decades, Pippa is the conspicuous absence in Mildred’s conversations with Hecate. 

Mildred spent many years meddling, trying to build on her success in the spelling bee of her first year at school to become an outright matchmaker. And largely thanks to Mildred’s efforts, Hecate and Pippa tried, a few different times, to reconcile properly. It never lasted. They would find a few months of happiness before the inevitable falling out, always brought about by Hecate’s secrets.

 _I won’t do this again_ , Pippa had said, the last time they saw each other. _I’ve loved you my whole life, Hecate Hardbroom, though sometimes I have no idea why. But I can’t do this if you won’t be honest with me_. 

Hecate had turned away and gripped the back of her chair to keep from watching Pippa go. If she had ever been capable of telling Pippa the whole truth, about Indigo and the confinement and the agony of an entire life spent in this castle, that moment was long past.

Hecate opens her eyes and looks back at Mildred’s thoughtful face. Mildred Hubble, grown old. Hecate and Pippa, grown even older. “Go on,” Hecate says.

“She asked about you,” Mildred continues. “She’s not well. I think she’d like to see you, but she wouldn’t be able to make the trip. And you don’t look like you could manage to get to her, either.”

“No,” Hecate says. “I can’t leave Cackle’s.” She almost laughs at how easy it is to say it, now that it doesn’t mean anything to anyone.

“I just wish I understood—” Mildred breaks off and sighs. “Never mind,” she says. “Forget I said anything.”

 _Tell her I wish I could go_ , Hecate wants to say. _Tell her I love her_. It catches in her throat and she stays silent.

Hecate has a bad few days after Mildred’s visit. She doesn’t get out of bed, and she spends her time slipping between sleeping and waking. She thinks she dreams of the past, but all the years have been so much the same that it’s hard to tell. Sometimes, though, she dreams of Pippa.

It’s the middle of the night when she gets up and goes to her desk. She feels stronger and braver than she has in a while, and Hecate knows she might not be either one ever again. She finds paper and wills her shaking hand to hold a pen. 

_Dear Pippa_ , she writes. 

But the weight of the explanation is overwhelming. How can she explain, now, what she did all those years ago? How can she explain, when she hardly understands it herself, why it seemed so terribly important to keep all of this from Pippa. It’s far too late to make a different choice now. 

_I’m sorry_ , she writes, and she lays the pen down.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And One that Did

+1. 

At first Hecate doesn’t know how to leave Cackle’s. She flies her broom across the property boundary, but the land below is confusing, and she loses her sense of direction quickly. She returns before the castle disappears from view, horrified that the students on their very first day know how to do this better than she does. She begins to study navigation.

There is also the problem of destination. The idea that she can go _anywhere_ is almost as paralyzing as the idea that she can go nowhere. 

The seaside, Hecate thinks. The summer she turned 13, the summer before everything happened, her aunt took her on holiday to the Devon coast. She remembers standing at the top of a windy cliff and watching the sea stretch as far as she could see while she imagined traveling even further. 

It takes her two weeks to plan the trip, to memorize the route and book the cottage, to work up the courage to leave. As she loses sight of everything familiar, her emotions get the better of her and force her to land. The thrill of freedom combines with panic of the unknown, and she’s shaking, brought to her knees in a muddy field. She focuses on her magic, lets it pulse in rhythm with her breath and then uses it to build a small pile of rocks in front of her. It is concrete and familiar. Anywhere in the world, she can still do these things; she is still Hecate Hardbroom.

It’s July and therefore too crowded, holiday-makers filling the inns and rental cottages all around the seaside witching village. She spends the first two days too overwhelmed to leave her cottage; the view of the waves and sound of the seagulls are new enough.

Eventually she finds a secluded spot up on a bluff far above the beach and far enough away from the best views to be quiet. She can transfer there directly from her cottage, and soon the back and forth becomes dependable and comfortable.

Each day, Hecate sits on the bluff and watches the sea. In the back of her mind, she thinks she ought to be doing something, or at least considering something. What to do next, whether to return to her job at Cackle’s, where she might go now that she has the world at her disposal. It’s tempting just to go back. She knows that life, she’s a reasonably good teacher, and whatever else it is, Cackle’s is her home. Perhaps it would feel different if being there were her choice. But would it really be a choice or simply the path of least resistance, a refusal to face her fear of the unknown? She pushes the thoughts away and listens to the wind. 

Back at the cottage, there are more messages on her maglet from Ada that she deletes unread. There is a new message from Pippa. These she neither reads nor deletes. She should— But she can’t decide what to do with regard to Pippa.

For decades Hecate has been afraid of Pippa finding out about her crime and its punishment. First it was a fear that Pippa, the only one of Joy’s friends who still wanted to be friends with Hecate, would drop her. Then it was the far worse fear that Pippa _wouldn’t_ drop her and instead would curtail her own life because of Hecate’s confinement. Years passed, and the shame of having anyone know became entrenched. After her reconciliation with Pippa, it was too late. She had kept this secret for so long that she didn’t know how to do anything else.

And just like when they were girls, it was getting in the way. Even as they fell, a little haltingly, back in love, Hecate refused all of Pippa’s invitations and wouldn’t explain why. Pippa was convinced Hecate was ashamed of her and thought Pentangle’s foolish. They fought badly in the late spring and have only spoken a few times since.

Pippa must know by now, Hecate thinks. All of Cackle’s knows and they’re probably spreading her secret far and wide. Hecate thinks it may actually be a relief not to have to tell Pippa herself, but the idea of actually facing Pippa and explaining why she has withheld this for more than 30 years is daunting.

Hecate looks again at the list of messages. She knows she should at least read them, but instead she puts the maglet aside and goes to sleep.

Later—a day, or three, or five; she finds it difficult to keep track—Hecate transfers back to the front of her cottage and finds Pippa sitting on the stoop. “Oh,” she says stupidly, and then can’t think of anything else.

“Hello, Hecate,” Pippa replies, squinting into the setting sun. Pippa looks like she belongs on a seaside holiday: bare tanned shoulders, freckles dotting her nose, her hair loose and curling. Hecate has left aside the heavy fabrics and corsets but otherwise knows she looks much as she always has. She has even charmed her hair not to be mussed by the wind.

“Pippa,” she manages. “What a surprise.”

“Is it?” Pippa asks. “I wrote to you.” 

“I— How did you know where I was?” Hecate asks. She had told Ada she was going away, nothing more. But an impulse of last-minute caution led her to leave the address with Dimity, just in case.

“I was at a conference with Dimity,” Pippa says, a little carefully. “She…told me what happened at the end of term, Hiccup. With Indigo Moon. And then after you didn’t answer any of my messages, I convinced her to tell me where you were. Though I did warn you that I was coming.”

“I see,” Hecate answers. She takes two small steps toward Pippa and then sits beside her on the stoop, a step below but close enough that when the wind blows Pippa’s skirt it brushes Hecate’s arm. She thinks she might be able to have this conversation if she doesn’t have to look Pippa in the eye. Instead she watches the sun as it drops closer to the western horizon. “I haven’t been reading my messages,” she says.

“I suppose that’s understandable enough,” Pippa replies. After a beat she continues. “It’s really true, then, what Dimity said? That you were unable to leave?”

Hecate nods, not trusting herself to say anything.

“So all those times I invited you to Pentangle’s, all those potions conferences I attended over the years hoping maybe you’d be there, even back at the start of uni when you didn’t show up to Weirdsister like I thought you would, it was all—” Pippa’s voice chokes a little.

“I’m sorry,” Hecate whispers.

“All this time they had you trapped,” Pippa continues, and Hecate hears that she’s crying properly now.

“I broke the Code,” Hecate says helplessly.

Pippa slides down to Hecate’s step and threads their fingers together. “You were a _child_ ,” Pippa says fiercely. 

Hecate shrugs. She knows, abstractly, that Pippa is right, that it has all been terribly unfair. She knows she was horrified to think of Mildred meeting same fate. But when she thinks about it for more than half a moment at a time, she can’t breathe.

Pippa leans into her and rests her head on Hecate’s shoulder. Hecate can feel Pippa’s tears against her sleeve, but she doesn’t trust herself to do anything but to keep holding Pippa’s hand. They sit for a long time, quiet in the long summer twilight.

“What will you do now?” Pippa asks finally.

“I don’t know,” Hecate replies. “I came here to decide, but I have no idea. At first it seemed like Ada was throwing me out, so I said I’d stay; I was afraid of not having anywhere to be. But now I don’t know if I could face going back. And I don’t know what I would do instead.” The paralysis feels almost physical, and Hecate centers her magic to keep from panicking. 

Pippa squeezes her hand. “Can I help at all?”

“You are,” Hecate says. “Thank you for coming.” Hecate tips her head so that her cheek rests against Pippa’s hair, and she focuses on Pippa’s body warm against hers, on Pippa’s even breathing. 

“I love you,” Pippa says quietly.

Hecate feels tears threaten. “I’ve never understood why,” she admits.

Pippa raises their joined hands and kisses Hecate’s knuckles. “Maybe we can work on that,” Pippa says. “We have time.”

“Yes,” Hecate whispers, cautiously allowing herself hope.


End file.
